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Yuna Hollander is not one to be up in the middle of the night. She’ll make a trip to the bathroom, now and again, especially as she’s gotten older, but it’s never an extended affair. She’s a busy woman, and she takes getting a good amount of sleep seriously. Nothing is more important than that.
Except Ilya is staying with them tonight. The Christmas break is on, giving professional hockey players time with their families and loved ones before everyone starts getting serious about the playoffs, at least for the Centaurs. The Voyageurs have their last game in two days, and then Shane will be home with them, but Yuna hated the idea of Ilya waiting alone in his home in Ottawa for Shane. Not at this time of year, at least.
And because she’s got someone beyond herself and David in the house to be concerned with, the hostess in her has her ears pricked for anything out of the ordinary. She wants to be sure Ilya always feels comfortable in their home. She remembers well the sensation of eggshells under her feet on the rare occasion she was alone with David’s parents when they first got married.
So when she rolls over and hears the click of the front door, she tries not to be alarmed, and fails. Ilya was a smoker, she knows, and she knows that some struggle to fully kick the habit—she also knows that smoking is a stress response. When she looks at her alarm clock and sees it’s after three in the morning, she knows something’s not right.
Grabbing her housecoat and sliding it on over her cotton pajamas, Yuna drops a kiss to David’s forehead and tells him to go back to sleep before leaving their bedroom and heading for the stairs.
She descends to the ground floor, the soft light from under the kitchen cupboards lighting the way to the foyer. When she gets there she leans against the doorway between the entry hall and the kitchen, watching Ilya kick snow from his boots and pull his parka off. She’s about to say something when he notices her, and in looking up at her the light over the front door catches his eyes, and she sees tears glittering there.
“Ilya, are you–”
“Yuna.” Ilya stands up straight and toes off his boots. His voice is stiff and formal, the way it has been with her and David without the buffer of Shane’s presence to bring familiarity. “I’m sorry to have woken you. Please, go back to bed.” He doesn’t make any move to wipe his eyes, as if drawing more attention to them will make it worse.
She wrestles for a moment, then decides she doesn’t want him hurting alone, if he’s hurting. “Honey,” she starts, walking toward him.
It happens so quickly that Yuna’s pretty sure it startles Ilya too. She watches his eyes widen as a sob spasms through him, the tears welling back up in his eyes and falling down his prominent cheekbones. Between blinks he’s gone from holding it all back to crying so forcefully he’s almost doubled over with it, and Yuna feels her heart shatter.
“Oh, darling,” she says, a bit wetly, and she wraps her arms around him and draws him close.
He’s tall, far taller than her, and he’s big and broad and roped with all the muscle that being a professional sports athlete requires, but when Yuna gathers him in her embrace, he shrinks. He hunches, curling his shoulders inward, and wraps his arms around her waist under her own arms.
Since that summer David came back from a visit to Shane’s cottage looking shell-shocked, Yuna has not known Ilya to be physically affectionate. He is a man who is full of love and emotion, and he is also a man who was raised to hold it all back, to keep emotion close to his chest. So the way he clings to her is alarming for how she knows it’s not his instinct. Something has pushed him to this.
Instinctually, she starts a gentle rocking motion. Yuna rocks him, rocks them both, a gentle swaying motion with his head bent low to rest on her shoulder and his big hands fisted like a child in the back of her housecoat. He shudders, and she rocks them, and he heaves a giant shaking breath, and she rocks them, and he lets out a shattered, broken sob. And she rocks him.
“Ilya,” she whispers, and her hand lifts from his neck to start carding through his curls. Her head turns to place a little kiss to his temple. She wonders when someone other than her son last did this for him.
Ilya starts to pull away, clearing his throat and sniffling. “Sorry—“ he starts.
Yuna chooses to exercise her considerable strength for her size and age to keep him firmly tucked against her shoulder. “Shh,” she admonishes him, hand still raking through his hair. The curls part neatly for her fingers, few tangles to halt them. “Let me hold you.”
He does, compliant in a way Yuna knows he isn’t usually, not without considerable internal or occasionally external protest. He lets her hold him, and eventually he even lets himself crumple against her, an aluminum can crushed under the weight of things it can no longer withstand.
Quiet settles around them, the dark of the night cut through only with the warm, dimmed light of the kitchen cupboards. Yuna keeps them on for when David comes down for a midnight snack on rare occasions. It happens infrequently, but Yuna never turns them off. Just in case.
The chest under her arms has stopped shuddering, but still Yuna rocks. Then, she pats his back, twice. “Go sit on the couch, honey,” she says, and she keeps her voice quiet like she’s keeping a secret. “I’ve got a pint of ice cream in the freezer and two spoons with our names on them.”
It feels like a little victory that he not only smiles at her, but nods, a little shy with it, and turns around toward the living room.
With the freezer door open, Yuna takes a moment in the cold air to freeze the tears that prick at her eyes. She pulls the pint of cookies ‘n’ cream out onto the counter, and as she heads for the cutlery drawer she grabs her phone off the wireless charger by the coffee machine. It’s late, but Shane is in LA with the Voyageurs after a win so she figures it won’t be as much of a disturbance when she sends him a text. Call Ilya when you wake up, she sends. Then, after a moment, she sends Nothing major, sweetie, but I think he’d like to hear from you.
She drops her phone into the pocket of her housecoat in case Shane wakes up and worries enough to call tonight, then snags the pint and the spoons.
On the couch, Ilya’s fingers trace the edges of the crucifix that rests on his chest, his gaze unfocused in the relative dark. Yuna sits down next to him, cracks the lid off the ice cream, and holds it out to Ilya with a spoon and a grin.
The smile she gets from him is still a little wet, but looks more like the Ilya she’s come to cherish. “We should be glad Shane is on West Coast,” Ilya says, his accent thicker but his words deliberately light. “He would not be able to resist making comment. About calories and meta–Shit, or, shoot. Sorry. What is word? Meta...boric...”
“Metabolic processing. And yes, he would,” Yuna says with a chuckle, helping herself to a generous spoonful. She’s not usually indulgent like this, wanting to be understanding and supportive of the dietary sacrifices Shane makes. But some circumstances call for indulging. “My son is many things, an accomplished athlete, an incredible partner, a loving son. And also a bit of a buzzkill, on occasion,” she says with equal amounts pride and apology in her tone.
They have a few spoonfuls in silence, Yuna holding the tub out after every spoonful she takes, Ilya taking his spoonfuls and looking only halfway present in his body to do so. Yuna’s heart lurches.
Eventually, Yuna holds the tub out, and Ilya is slower to accept. He does, but it looks more like busywork, something to occupy his hands to match the thoughts occupying his brain. She lets him work out whatever he needs to work out. Wordlessly, she snags the lid from the coffee table in front of them, and she puts the sealed tub down in its place.
Another moment passes, and Ilya still has that look on his face like he’s wrestling with the weight of the world, so she plucks the spoon out of Ilya’s hand and stands. “I’m not shutting the party down, but I’ll go put the ice cream back and get the spoons in the dishwasher.” Impulsively, she leans down and presses a kiss to Ilya’s hairline. “You don’t have to go back to bed if you’re not ready, but you don’t have to stay up either. I’ll come back and keep sitting with you as long as you need.”
She doesn’t linger to gauge his reaction. In the kitchen, she takes a little longer than necessary to tuck the ice cream back in the freezer, carefully opens the dishwasher to drop their spoons in the cutlery caddy. If she makes too much noise David might wake up, and while she’s sure Ilya wouldn’t resent his presence, Yuna has the sense that it would significantly alter the energy of the living room.
When it feels right, she tucks her housecoat around herself and makes her way back to the couch. She sits, and almost instantly, Ilya’s head is on her shoulder. She adjusts them briefly to get her arm around his back, and her hand finds its way back into his curls. Ilya could take until sunrise to say another word and Yuna knows she would sit on this couch with him until then.
“She never chooses to stay with me,” Ilya says, his accent clinging to his tongue with sleep and emotion, “even in my dreams.”
He splits the silence decisively. He’s chosen vulnerability, Yuna can tell from how his shoulders tense while he speaks. This is difficult for him, but he’s making the effort to share, and Yuna is so proud of him for it.
She doesn’t need to guess who he’s talking about.
Yuna rests her cheek atop Ilya’s head, her fingers twisting strands of Ilya’s hair between them. She takes a moment to consider her words, wanting to offer Ilya the same vulnerability he’s given her.
“I had terrible post-partum depression after I had Shane,” she says, before she’s even really decided to talk about it.
Ilya shifts. “I am sorry.” And then, after a brief moment, “Post-....?”
“Partum,” Yuna repeats. “It’s a specific type of depression people get after giving birth. Your body is full of all these hormones, and you’ve just spent nine months of your life growing a baby... It’s a lot. And David and I had talked about having more, while I was pregnant, kind of hypothetically, and...”
Ilya shifts, and he gathers Yuna’s hand into his own, tucks it in his lap. His thumb strokes the back of hers, and she smiles.
“Anyway. I remember just holding Shane, and feeling like there was no way I could be what he needed. I was too young, and I had no clue what I was doing, and I knew, with an absolutely alarming conviction, that I had harmed him by giving birth to him.” She takes a deep breath; these memories are still tough, some three decades later. “I thought he’d be better off with anyone else for a mother.”
“He could not have asked for better,” Ilya says, quietly.
“David told me much the same, and still does when I start to wonder,” Yuna says, fondly. “I was lucky, in a weird way. I felt safe and loved enough to talk to David about it, and our doctor put me on a short-term prescription, and eventually, before I even really noticed what had happened, I realized I didn’t feel like that anymore. I didn’t feel fixed, but I didn’t feel broken like I did.”
Beside her, Ilya lets out a breath. It’s not a sigh, Yuna doesn’t think, just a release of air held in his lungs. “I’m sorry,” he says again.
Yuna squeezes Ilya’s shoulders to her side, rubbing his upper arm firmly. “It’s been a long time since I felt like that, but it’s something I still carry with me,” she says. “When you and Shane told me about wanting to start this charity together... I can’t tell you how proud I was of both of you. How proud I am of you, Ilya. You both stared down this terrifying thing, your future, and chose to be unfailingly good in the face of it. That’s incredible.”
Ilya drops Yuna’s hand to press the heels of his hands into his eyes. “Ugh, I finally stop crying and you make direct attack on my heart.”
Yuna laughs. “Sorry, kiddo, Shane should have warned you I like a good heart-to-heart.”
“If I remember, David did not give us time for warnings,” Ilya says from behind his hands, and they laugh together about it a little bit.
When the laughter dies, Yuna can’t help herself. “I am not your mother,” she says carefully, staring up at the ceiling in hopes that gravity will keep the tears in her eyes and not on her cheeks. “I would never want to take her place, I would never want to be what she was to you.” She drops her cheek to the top of Ilya’s head again, a soft little smile on her lips. “But if it’s alright with you, I’d love to be a mother to you. I would love to have another son.”
Suddenly, Ilya is no longer tucked on her shoulder, but he’s lurching forward with a choked out sob and hugging Yuna fiercely. These sobs sound a little bit like laughter, maybe a little hysterical, but Yuna’s crying too while she rubs his back and chuckles from emotion alone.
“You will not replace her,” Ilya says, the words stumbling around his sobs as they die down and he nuzzles his forehead on her shoulder, “but I think she is happy to share this place with you.”
The joyful laugh that erupts out of Yuna is truthfully more of a sob. “I’m honoured,” she says fiercely, squeezing him tightly. “She raised an incredible boy while she had the chance to. And I never knew her, but I know that it is the pride of my life to see the man you choose to be, every day. I hope she feels the same.”
She holds him for a long while again after that. This feels less dire, however.
From the kitchen, a phone buzzes in a peculiar rhythm, not one long buzz like Yuna associates with her or David’s phones getting a phone call. Ilya pulls himself out of Yuna’s arms. “That’s Shane calling me,” he says absently.
He stands from the couch and pads into the kitchen where he left his phone, his hands wiping at his eyes as he goes, and Yuna pulls hers out of her housecoat pocket to check the time. It’s just after four in the morning here, which means it’s around one for Shane. She hopes he had been out celebrating and didn’t wake up just because of her texts.
Ilya picks up the phone and answers softly in Russian. It reminds Yuna of David helping her practice French as they fell asleep at night, conversations about their day in simple words, said sleepily. “Yes, yes, is alright,” Ilya says while staring unseeingly toward the far side of the kitchen island, and Yuna’s heart warms as it does every time she sees Ilya’s unfettered adoration for her son on his face. “Was just bad dream. Yes. I know, I wish this too. I am glad you called, though. Is nice to hear your voice.”
He turns to prop a hip against the side of the island, and he smiles back at Yuna where she’s come to stand a polite distance away. “Your mother is being bad influence,” he says, and Yuna scoffs, stepping further into the kitchen now that she’s been tacitly invited into the conversation. “She is plying me with late night snacks. I am on sugar high.”
“I am not!” Yuna protests, loud enough that she hopes Shane can hear. She thinks she might hear his laughter through the speaker. “Nothing wrong with a bit of ice cream when you’re sad!
With a smirk, Ilya pulls his phone away from his ear and hits the speakerphone button. Shane is clearly in the middle of a lecture, because Yuna hears “... takes your body so much longer to process anything this late at night, and then for it to be full of sugars and empty calories is just asking for acid reflux and indigestion, which is to say nothing for what your body does with that when there’s no energy output to work it off–”
“God, Hollander, you are buzzkill. You kill buzz. Even your mother knows this, you are universally known as buzzkill.”
There’s an audible gasp on the line. “Mom, are you shit-talking me with my boyfriend?”
Yuna’s been laughing since she heard him ranting, and she’s having trouble keeping it down so David doesn’t wake up. “I would never! Your boyfriend is conspiring against me, he’s trying to drive a wedge between us.”
“Is true. I want her all to myself. Now I will be the favourite son.”
Shane sighs. “You’re already the favourite son. Mom’s and Dad’s!”
“Yet another thing I beat you at. You are slacking, Hollander.”
Shane chuckles, then yawns big enough to be heard on the phone. “I guess I’ll have to work harder then.”
“I expect nothing else from you. Is so late is early here, must be very late there. Go back to bed,” Ilya says with the warmth of a summer breeze, then says something else in Russian.
Shane hums, and it sounds sleepy, then he says, “Spoon?”
It makes Ilya laugh, gentle and so very sweet. “Very good. Goodnight, Shane.”
Shane replies in Russian, his accent not perfect, but good enough that Yuna’s impressed, though not surprised. She knows how dedicated her son is when he wants something. Ilya hangs up.
“We should go to bed too,” she says, reaching out and giving his arm a quick rub.
Ilya nods. “Yes. I was not making a joke when I said is so late is early here. I have kept you up too late.” He says this with a bit of guilt in his tone.
Yuna gathers him in another hug, less emotionally charged than the other times she’s held him tonight. “I would stay up all night with you, if that’s what you needed.”
She feels Ilya lean down, and then he kisses the top of her head once, perhaps a bit reverently. “You are too full of love, Mama,” he says, and his voice wobbles despite his obvious attempt to be casual about it.
“Oh,” Yuna gasps, “oh, you don’t–You don’t have to–”
“Hush,” he says, then squeezes her. “Is time for bed. David will be worried if he is not awake already.” He makes a break for the stairs.
Yuna watches him climb them, his broad shoulders and his crown of golden hair lit from the back by the soft, warm lights of the kitchen. Absently, she reaches up and clutches at the opening of her housecoat, her grasp resting over her heart. She wishes she could have given Ilya a chance, all the way back in Regina, all those years ago. She wishes she would have seen why this boy, who matched her son beat for beat at every level of their early careers, ended up behaving the way he did. Why he chose to protect himself that way.
“Ilya?” she calls.
He turns, his hand on the bannister. “Hmm?”
“I love you, honey,” Yuna says, smiling.
Ilya ducks his head, shuffling a hand through his hair. “Love you too,” he says when he raises his head again, smiling back at her.
He takes the final steps up, and disappears toward Shane’s room. Yuna takes one last look around the kitchen, places her phone back on the charger by the coffee machine, then follows, heading the opposite way down the hall to the master bedroom.
She hangs up her housecoat on the back of the closet door and climbs in bed next to David, who rolls over to throw an arm around her waist. “He okay?” he mumbles, clearly only half-awake.
Yuna wraps her arm around his. “He will be,” she says, threading their fingers together. “We’ll help him get there.”